By Tennessee Williams Starring Sienna Miller and Jack O’ConnellDirected by Benedict AndrewsA Young Vic Production

Sunday, January 6 // 7
pmMichigan Theater

On a sweltering night in Mississippi, a Southern family gathers at their cotton plantation to celebrate Big Daddy’s birthday. The scorching heat is almost as oppressive as the lies they tell. Brick and Maggie dance round the secrets and sexual tensions that threaten to destroy their marriage. With the future of the family at stake, which version of the truth is real ­— and which will win out?This steamy presentation of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, a
play that has featured a long line of prominent actresses in the role of Maggie Pollitt, is set in the modern day. Arguably considered Tennessee Williams’s most successful play and a masterpiece of the 20th century, it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1955.

As a country arms itself for war, a family tears itself apart. Forced to avenge his father’s death but paralyzed by the task ahead, Hamlet rages against the impossibility of his predicament, threatening both his sanity and the security of the state.This encore presentation of the National Theatre 2015 broadcast of Shakespeare’s Hamlet features Academy Award® nominee Benedict Cumberbatch (BBC’s Sherlock, The Imitation Game) in the title role of this epic, lavish production.

The Greek artist Dimitris Papaioannou creates productions that can be seen as moving still lifes, always with a strong, distinct visual intensity. Often referencing famous sculptures and paintings, Papaioannou uses the human body to create vignettes that are at once
macabre and beautiful, brimming at times with humor, horror, circus-like stunts, and optical illusions.

Papaioannou gained early recognition as a painter and comics artist before his focus shifted to the performing arts. He became more widely known internationally as the creator of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. He freely and unapologetically uses nudity to add wit and absurdity to sober material in a way that is both inventive and surprising. This tour, which includes performances at UMS and UCLA, marks his first presentations in the United States.

Visionary director Peter Sellars directs a haunting dramatization of Orlando di
Lasso’s Renaissance masterwork, Lagrime di San Pietro. In di Lasso’s final days, he resolved to write an a cappella masterpiece that channeled the pain, despair, and embattled faith of his final journey. Committed to memory and dramatically staged, the work depicts the seven stages of grief that St. Peter experienced after disavowing his knowledge of Jesus Christ on the day of his arrest and prior to his crucifixion.

Twenty-one singers transform this 75-minute Renaissance masterpiece into an overwhelmingly emotional performance piece, turning madrigals of sorrow
and remorse into a setting of quietly shattering power. Sellars’s stark staging illuminates the biblical story’s connections to the concerns of our fractious modern world, turning the work into a contemporary allegory about remorse, responsibility and acceptance.

Recipients of Musical America's Musicians of the Year award, pianist Wu Han and cellist David Finckel are currently in their third term as artistic directors of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Winner of the 2015 European Cultural Prize for Music, violinist Daniel Hope is associate artistic director of the Savannah Music Festival, music director of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, music director of San Francisco’s New Century Chamber Orchestra, and in 2019 begins his
appointment as artistic director of the Dresden Frauenkirche.

Appointed principal violist of the New York Philharmonic at age 21, Paul Neubauer is a two-time Grammy nominee and has appeared as soloist with over 100 orchestras. He has premiered numerous viola concertos and has been featured on CBS's Sunday Morning, A Prairie Home Companion, and in Strad, Strings, and People magazines.

This all-star ensemble comes together for an evening of piano quartet classics.

Camille A. Brown & Dancers is a Bessie Award-winning, New Your City-based dance company known for an introspective approach to cultural themes through visceral movement and socio-political dialogues. The company uses theatricality and the aesthetics of modern, hip hop,
African, ballet, and tap to tell stories that connect history with contemporary culture.

The final installation of Camille A. Brown's trilogy on the common theme of identity, ink writes and rewrites the stories of life, love, resistance, faith, pain, strength, oppression, freedom, and the authenticity of Black people and Black communities that have been appropriated, rewritten, or silenced. From the Abolitionist movement to the Civil Rights struggle, from the Black Power movement to the emergence of hip-hop, the work explores the link between the heart of the hip-hop cultural phenomenon and our current generation’s political response to socioeconomic injustice.

Black Girl, the second piece in the trilogy, was
presented by UMS in 2016.

RELATED EVENTS

Detroit Community Movement WorkshopWed, Jan 23 // 6:30 pm // Location TBDJoin dancers from Camille A. Brown & Dancers as they lead a community movement workshop exploring all of the ways in which our bodies are instruments for expression. No dance training, experience, or footwear necessary, and all levels, ages 13 and up, are welcome.

You Can Dance: Camille A. Brown & DancersSat, Jan 26 // 1:35-2:50 pm //Ann Arbor YMCA (400 W Washington St)Dancers from Camille A. Brown & Dancers will lead an exploration of the
company's movement style. No dance training or experience necessary, and all levels, ages 13 and up, are welcome. Free, but first come, first served until studio reaches capacity. Sign-up begins at 12:50 pm. Picture ID required at registration.

Post-Performance Artist Q&AMust have a performance ticket to attend.

Funded in part by: New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance ProjectMedia Partner: WDET 101.9 FM